A DAD today told of his disbelief when he awoke to find an upturned car in his porch.

Craig and Sharon Coates were disturbed at 2.40am and found two cars and part of their caravan nestled in the porch of their home in Bromford Road, Hodge Hill.

"I heard this almighty smash and thought it was someone trying to steal my car," Mr Coates said. "I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, opened the front door and saw headlights and my car which had been pushed forward.

"I could hear someone groaning from inside the car but I couldn't get to him because the cars were jamming up my porch. So I shut the front door thinking 'this is not happening - it's unreal'".

Mr Coates went upstairs and checked his five-year-old daughter Shauna was safe in the front bedroom before going back downstairs and out through the back door.

By now the driver had got himself out and was sitting on a garden wall, which the car had ploughed through.

"I was in a complete state of shock," Mr Coates said. "My car is a complete write-off and the porch demolished and will have to be rebuilt."

The 34-year-old National Express coach driver had only had the Nissan Primera estate for a month. He and his 31-year-old wife, a classroom assistant, had lived in their 1930s semi for three years.

Ward End leading firefighter Mark Engers said the driver of the Ford Mondeo had missed a turning and lost control of his car. "It overturned onto its roof and slid along the road, only coming to a halt in the porch of this house," he said.

He said the driver was "amazingly lucky" to have escaped with just minor injuries and was taken to hospital by ambulance.

Mr Coates claimed it was the fifth accident he knew of in that stretch of the Bromford Road since they had lived there.

No-one was immediately available for comment from Birmingham City Council.